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And here is the bay from the Yugoslav side (now Slovenija) courtesy of Google. I drew a white line to show the distance I had to swim (during the night) to avoid the crossing station on the right. The gray line on the insert (in the lower left corner) is the border.

I was born in 1949 in communist Hungary. My father, a forest ranger, was already 46 yearsold at that time. My mother, 14 years younger than my father, had always been “just” a motherand housewife. My 2 brothers were born 9 and 12 years before me. Both my grandfathers hadlived in the USA for a while after 1900.

My father did not like the communist regime so he joined the revolution of 1956.After Russian tanks crushed the revolt, he was not allowed to continue working in hisprofession. He had to accept the only job offered to him at the power plant nearby, operatingturbines in a chamber full of dust. The salary he earned was barely enough for our family tosurvive. Since my father’s “crime” was added to my record as well, I had no future in Hungary.When I first attempted to escape to the West with a classmate of mine at age 17, we werecaught at the border and put in jail. As this also showed on my record, it was obvious thatI was drafted to serve in a labor camp instead of regular military service. I consider it thegreatest miracle of my life that only a couple of years later, in 1973, I was able to breakfree from the communist bloc. Of course, when I reached the Italian shore, swimming fromYugoslavia on that August night, my quest for freedom was just beginning.

The corrupt, so-called communist system I grew up in left its marks on my mentality. It had taken a long time until I learned how to discard the leftover blemishes that negatively effected my personality, my character. [In the process I realized that corrupt power consciously corrupts the individual and then forces him to be on the defensive, blackmails him for being corrupt. A way to control and exploit.]

While learning the language of my new country after I landed in New York in 1974, I did all kinds of odd jobs. I worked in a factory, painted houses, served as a doorman, drove a taxi cab, and sold ice cream from a "Good Humor" truck. When I got my first new car, a Datsun B210, in 1978, I immediately packed my luggage and drove 5 days to arrive in Los Angeles, California. There, I spent the first night in my car. Next day, I found a furnished studio apartment in Hollywood (for $195 a month!), and another day later I convinced the Manager of the Beverly Hills branch of Great Western Savings and Loan that he should employ me as a teller. In 1980, I movedto Ventura, about an hour drive north of LA, where I got "lucky". I applied for and got the job I never even knew existed: I became a copier salesman. The company, Savin Corporation,provided full training. I worked very hard and managed to keep my job in this high turn-over business. Working in sales helped my English improve rapidly. Of course, I had to use the fullcapacity of my brain to perform as expected by management... and in a couple of years, I wastotally burned out. It was again time for me to "escape". Since I missed Europe, I booked a flight and landed in Zurich, Switzerland. I found some chess player friends at the Lugano International Master Tournament who advised me to move to Basel and try to find work there at one of the 3 pharmaceutical companies, as my degree from Hungary was in Chemistry. In Basel, I rented a small furnished apartment and worked illegally for a few months with a moving company. Eventually, I was able to obtain a work permit and started teaching English at the Orsini Sprachschule (Orsini Language School). In 1984, I was back at Savin Corporation in California. Before returning to Orsini in 1987, I spent almost a full year in Germany, teaching Englishat the Idioma Sprachschule in Karlsruhe. In 1989, I returned to the USA again, back to selling copiers in California. Of course, every change I made brought new adventures. In my desperate search, I made some irresponsible and risky steps that could have resulted in disasters... but, miraculously, I always survived. I must conclude that Higher Powers watched over me.

My first attempt at writing was influenced by science fiction movies I had seen. My curiosityand my imagination have always made me wonder about the unknown, and my urge to create myown story grew stronger. Finally, in 2000, I was able to make the time to write "Reign of the Chroms" in which I indirectly speculate about the hick-ups of human evolution. Another 10 years later, after much encouragement by friends who knew about my adventures, I sat down to write the story of my escapes from the Soviet bloc. Escapes, indeed, as in 1976, believing that the amnesty the Hungarian government issued was credible, I returned to my homeland. How I managed to free myself again and survive the torture I had to endure when caught on the Yugoslav-Italian border in the fall of 1977 is also described in my second book, Escapes from behind the Iron Curtain.________________________________________________________________________ Click Books to find Escapes from behind the Iron CurtainClick Books to find Reign of the ChromsClick Games to find "the game for the 21st century mind" Click Games for the combination of Gle'x & conventional Chess​ ___________________________________________________________________________

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​This is a picture of the bay I had to swim during the night of August 3, 1973 to gain my freedom from the communist bloc. It is taken from the Italian side; I found it recently on the Internet. The tip of the bay is on the left. That's where the border crossing station was. The border runs somewhere in the middle of the bay.